Category: Dollhouses & Miniatures

While it’s entirely possible that I suffer from too many hobbies already, I decided to start building my 1:12 scale dollhouse. This is the first one I’m building totally ground up, and I can only find time to work on it in spurts, so I expect it to take a LLOONNGG time to finish. My husband just moved all of my craft stuff into the family room so I could still hang out with him and the kids.

My last house, a 1:24 scale pre-built, I didn’t enjoy as much I think mostly because of the difficulty in working with that size having long fingernails. (How precious can it get? IKR?!?) I still have quite a bit of decorating to do on it, but I’m setting it aside until the granddaughters are a little bit old so they can help me finish it and then have it to play with, since I already have all of the furniture for it.

The plan for this next dollhouse is a coffee shop / bakery — largely because I’ve already bought most of the accessories and need someplace to display them. 🙂 I couldn’t help myself. Cute stuff is cute. I have a couple favorite shops. When I’m in New York, I can’t resist The Tiny Dollhouse on East 78th Street, which is where the coffee shop idea started. Long story short, I fell in love with an espresso machine. I didn’t buy it when I first saw it due to a bit of sticker shock (I mean seriously – how can something so tiny cost that much??) combined with having already overspent my shopping budget for the trip. I couldn’t stop thinking about, tho, and went back to pick it up a few months later, along with a host of other coffee shop awesomeness.

Closer to home, I love Miniature Memories in Charleston, SC. There I found some more accessories to bring the coffee shop to life. Inspired by my favorite coffee shop here in Columbia, SC, The Local Buzz, I picked up some more books and puzzles and games. I’ve been ordering little things here and there from online shops, too – and perhaps planning the next few projects while I was at it. I put a lot of my ideas and inspirations on my Dollhouses and Miniatures Pinterest board.

Between visits to Charleston and my last couple trips to NYC, I have collected close to 50 pieces. If I don’t get around to building this house soon, I suspect my husband may ban me from bringing any more of this adorable stuff home.

I have plans on building some of the accessories myself, but we’ll see how ambitious I feel after I get the house built. This weekend I’ll be dying the shingles and varnishing the floors so they can dry all week. Over the next couple weekends, I’ll tackle the giving the exterior its first coat and sanding. Today the kids and I picked up an awesome family room present for my husband’s birthday this week — He’ll be nicely occupied for a while, LOL.